


Suckers in the Snow

by Michelle_A_Emerlind



Series: A Story to Suck You In (i.e. Octopus!Rick) [3]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alexandria Safe-Zone, Crack, Cute Octopus, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, Explicit Octopus Language, Fluff, Graphic Depictions of (Funny) Violence, Humor, M/M, No Tentacle Sex, Octopus, Octopus!Rick, Season 6 But No Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 14:31:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5378603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michelle_A_Emerlind/pseuds/Michelle_A_Emerlind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmastime is here in Alexandria and everyone is happy for the snow and festivities. Well, except for a certain leader by the name of Rick Grimes. And his annoying habit of turning into an octopus (no tentacle sex, just fluffy crack and fun). For the Rickyl Writer's Group "Winter Romance" December 2015 Challenge and the third in the Octopus!Rick series (although it is stand alone).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suckers in the Snow

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys like my cute little octopus!Rick! He is both terrifying AND adorable. :D And, as always, thanks to the lovely skarlatha for betaing!

When Christmas comes, it smacks all of them on their asses like a big firework set off into the middle of the sky. The first thing to come is the snow, powdery and light at first and then heavy all the way up here in Virginia. Soon, it coats the ground in nice, even waves, little hills and bumps of crystal shining whiteness. And then, when it’s settled, the cold. Hats come out of closets, gloves in storage or that have been found on runs. And then, well, Tobin remarks lightly at a town meeting that his calendar says it’s December. Glenn confirms, Tara squeals in joy, and suddenly Daryl finds himself dragging boxes of plastic Christmas trees away from the Home Depot store a couple of miles away into the Alexandria town limits.

Rick helps him, of course, even though he has a frown on his face. That should be Daryl’s first clue.

When it’s all said and done after five days of hauling and putting boot prints in the snow, there are twenty boxes of trees ready to dish out. And despite the fact that Rick hems and haws and complains about putting one up, Carl finally badgers him into doing it, if for nothing else than for Judith to have a first Christmas.

Which is how Daryl finds himself in the living room, methodically putting the little plastic hooks into ornaments to hang. Behind him, Rick complains and babbles on about how the plastic tree needles are getting everywhere and about how dumb it is that they have to put tinsel on everything and how do you get the damn tree skirt on anyway? Daryl ignores him for the most part. It seems like Rick’s standard goings-on, nothing but releasing a little frustration.

But when the lights come out, _shit_ , it’s a different story. At first, Daryl doesn’t even recognize it, the rustling of the little bulbs and wire being thrown around the tree. The grumblings start. And then the words. _Shit, fuck, stupid, motherfucker, asshole, goddammit it, where the hell is the end of this damn string, FUCK where’s the plug, son of a goddamn hubule wubasi! NUI HUSI! POU, POU, POU!!!!_

Daryl jerks into stillness, his shoulders tensing up dramatically. Oh no. No, no, no, he thinks. But that doesn’t seem to stop the sounds of little suckers smacking against the wood floor and the rattling of lights and ornaments and tree parts.

Daryl squeezes his eyes shut tight for just a few bare seconds and then sucks up his courage and turns around. And there, nestled in lights half blinking and have burned out, his little beady eyes screwed shut in anger, is a shaking, nearly exploding octopus.

“You guys need help in there?” Carl calls from the kitchen and Daryl sighs in exasperation.

“No!” he yells back to Carl. “Your dad’s just an octopus again.”

“Motherfucker,” Daryl hears Carl sigh in a resigned tone. “Alright!” he calls louder. “Tell me if you need me.”

***

It takes Daryl five minutes to untangle Rick, ten for him to get Rick to stop smacking down the tree, and another fifteen to put the ornaments back in place. In the end, he bribes him with a can of sardines, sitting it down in the opposite corner of the living room so that Daryl can go back and rearrange the tinsel so it doesn’t show the broken bits that have been sucker punched.

He’s just putting the last knocked-down-ornament into place on the bottom half of the tree when Rick finally reacts. He rushes across the floor with little octopus patters and while Daryl’s hand is still in the hook, smacks the thing off the tree with a little, “HUBULE WUBASI!” that Daryl has quickly learned means “fuck Christmas.”

The little ornament ball goes careening away from Daryl’s hand to smack into the wall, but that must not be enough for Rick, because he tackles it like he’s trying to win the superbowl and crushes it down with his beak, spitting out little shards of plastic and then looking super satisfied with himself. He lifts himself onto his tentacles and walks away with his head held high and Daryl is definitely sure that if he had a nose, it would be in the air.

“Happy with yourself?” Daryl grumbles and Rick responds with a very firm “ _UB!_ ”

“What don’t you like about Christmas?” Daryl asks, but all he gets is a two tentacle-raised shrug and then Rick’s beady eyes set upon the lights that are twinkling in the tree. He goes for them, but Daryl manages to catch him in the air like a softball, thrilled at the little squish of Rick’s body meeting his hands. “Nu huh,” he tells Rick. “Enough with the tree. Why don’t we go outside, okay? Maybe the snow will calm you down.”

Rick huffs, but melts in Daryl’s arms, expanding and then deflating his body in a sigh. “Plep?” he asks and Daryl just grunts an affirmative before Rick suckers his way across Daryl’s shoulder and neck up to his head. He flops down in Daryl’s hair, tentacles arranged like hair around Daryl’s face and sighs a little happy sigh before squishing down further to get comfortable.

“There,” Daryl tells him and walks to the closet, starts digging around for the precious box of octopus supplies the family has gathered over the years. “Now, if we’re going out, no complaining, okay? You have to be warm.”

“POU!” Rick starts, already knowing where this is going. “Pou bibis!”

“UB BIBIS!” Daryl huffs and then rolls his eyes. “ _Yes, mittens, Rick. You will put them on or your suckers will freeze to the ground and you know that_.”

“HMMPH!” Rick huffs and when Daryl grabs the box of eight little knitted gloves and goes for a tentacle, Rick goes wild, scooting across his head and back, trying his best to evade and out-maneuver Daryl. But Daryl is a hunter, dammit, and has damn good reflexes and there’s no way in hell that he’s letting Rick get away with inappropriately clothed limbs.

And there goes another twenty minutes of his day. But once it’s all said and done, he’s got all _eight_ limbs encased in mittens--six like little socks and the front two tentacles like little gloves, better for Rick’s maneuvering and grabbing tendencies. And Daryl’s even slapped the little puffball hat on top of the octopus’ head without too much complaint, but a lot of glarey eyes.

“There!” Daryl says, satisfied with his work. “All ready to play in the snow.”

Rick makes a noise that sounds an awful lot like a tongue being stuck out and then settles down on Daryl’s head and starts slapping him to walk forward. With a roll of his eyes, Daryl grabs his own coat and gloves (he already has an eight-limbed hat) and heads to the door.

Outside, the sun is bright, but the snow is crystal and magical. For once, Alexandria isn’t a pot of tension, but a budding community of laughing and light faces. There’s a group off to the wall making snowmen, some of the women have gathered to do snow-angels, and there even seems to be a rather intense snowball fight happening off to Daryl’s left.

Daryl sticks his hands deep into his pockets and moves about the space, Rick squirming on his head, but looking around and plubbing at the sights. Most of the Alexandrians shy away from Rick after his last incident as a rage-pus when he nearly took out the eye of the well-meaning Denise who was hoping to find a more fitting and quick cure than “Daryl will have to make him happy.”

But for the moment, everyone keeps going with their festivities, making an extra point to avoid suspicious glances and turned heads at the octopus that is now wiggling his body side-to-side, taking everything in. “The snow is pretty, isn’t it?” Daryl tries, but only gets a huff and a raspberry in response. “Now, Rick,” he chides, “you could try--”

“Pou!” Rick says with feeling, “Nu pou ulpi o nu pou wubasi.” He launches into a more complicated string of sounds and Daryl furrows his brow in concentration until he _thinks_ he gets to the point.

“You don’t like snow?”

“Pou.”

“You like snow when you’re a human,” Daryl points out helpfully.

There’s a little squish followed by an expanding and deflating sigh. “...brubru tu beps.”

Daryl laughs and rolls his eyes. “It’s cold on your suckers. Okay, but that’s why you have mittens? Aren’t you warm? Look, you want to help make the snowmen? Let’s go make a snowman.”

Daryl takes a step forward, ready to head off toward the wall where Michonne and Morgan are working when out of nowhere comes a flying missile of snowy doom that smacks Rick in the back and sends him flying off of Daryl’s head in a loud screeching squish. Daryl jerks in horror as part of his hair flies off with the octopus where Rick was clutching it and frightfully watches as Rick lands in a snowbank with a little “ _HUSI...SQUISH!_ ”

The dawning realization settles into Daryl’s veins like the hardest ice. Someone threw a snowball at Rick. And someone is going to _die_.

Daryl whips around with wide eyes and sees Aaron standing not too far away, a joyful smile on his face. But there is nothing joyful about this moment as Rick crawls his way out of the snowbank, mittens half on and half off and his hat wonky on his head. “PLO…” Rick squeaks, “HUHU!!!!” And then he’s rushing forward like a little tornado, whipping his tentacles wildly back and forth in the snow. Daryl jumps out of the way just barely in time as Rick gets his body really going and then starts spinning--four tentacles set on snowball production and four set on _flinging_ and just as Aaron’s face finally reflects the gravity of the situation, the snowballs start going, the first smacking Aaron flat in his open mouth where he has started to scream.

Daryl ducks and without anything left to do, watches as ball after ball after ball hit Aaron like little bitty bombs until one smacks him so hard in the chest, he trips on a strand of ice and goes down on his back. And, once the giant has been conquered, Rick makes his real move, rushing forward and balling up snow while he goes until he’s a little squeak of red-skinned-rage rolling his way toward Aaron. He lets the ball go at the last minute and honks in joyful revenge when it rolls over Aaron to smack him straight in the face.

With that done, Rick turns his back to Aaron and smacks his tentacles together as if ridding himself of the task. Daryl sighs heavily and stares down at the snowy mess of a sea creature. “Done?” he asks.

“Ub,” Rick tells him and shakes himself. He picks up a mitten and holds it out to Daryl to see. “Bibi?”

Daryl rolls his eyes and squats down to help him.

***

After Aaron is taken to the hospital to find out that he is not actually injured, just stunned with a little octopus PTSD, Daryl takes Rick further away to a corner of the town where snow angels are being made. He figures that snow angels are a safe task--there are no lights to get tangled in, no shiny ornaments to kill, and most certainly not Alexandrians trying to get Rick involved in snowball fights.

So Daryl picks a nice plane of empty, new snow and sits Rick down so that he can create a pattern that might make him happy or at least entertained for a moment. And Rick does seem to like it...at first. He screws up his eyes in happiness and starts spinning, his tentacles swishing this way and that methodically. He burbles as he goes and starts honking when his level of enjoyment reaches critical mass. And then he starts spinning faster. And faster. And faster. And…

“Whoa, buddy,” Daryl says, reaching down to tap Rick on his puff-ball head, “don’t get carried away.”

Rick stops his motion and blinks and then looks down at himself and the pattern he’s been making in the snow. A pattern that is now just a circle and no longer any delicate shape. And then Daryl hears the saddest of sounds, a squishy whining followed by a snuffly honk and oh god. Inky tears. There are inky octopus tears.

“ _Shit_ ,” Daryl hisses and kneels down fast. “Hey, Rick. It’s okay. It’ll be al--”

“POU!” Rick cries and flings his mitten-acles up over his beady eyes and starts snuffling louder, all the while plubbing, “Gubo, gubo, gubo,” which Daryl can only thinks mean _circle_.

“It’s a nice circle, though?” Daryl tries, but that’s not the right answer.

“HUBULE PLO!” Rick squeals and lifts his tentacles from his eyes to smack down on the bridge of Daryl’s nose hard enough to cause him to jerk forward in the motion.

“MOTHERFUCKER!” Daryl cries out, clutching his nose for all he’s worth right at the same time that the tentacles start way-laying on his head. “RICK!” he growls and when Rick doesn’t stop, Daryl grabs hold of an offending sucker and pulls the tentacle out hard before letting go rapidly and watching as Rick smacks himself in the face with it.

Rick squeaks like a little deflated balloon and immediately goes from rage back into crying again and that’s it. Fuck this noise, Daryl thinks. Snow angels are _definitely_ off the table.

***

Next, they try carolling. Daryl picks Rick up and dusts him off and makes sure to stomp the circle just like Rick asks before he puts him back on his head. While Rick gets comfy and adjusts his hat and socks, Daryl walks around to find the group that had been singing earlier and finds them to still be going strong. Father Gabriel, the lead singer of the overly-joyful Christmas choir, welcomes them to the group and they head off to Jessie’s house, which is next on their list.

Jessie opens the door with a smile that only slightly falters at the sight of Rick. After their last incident together in which Ron’s teenager-ness had octofied Rick, she’s been a little wary to be in the same room with him. Well, that or she’s still stitching up her son’s sucker wounds. Daryl’s not sure which. But either way, she nods with a smile when they announce they’ll sing “Silent Night,” and with a tap on his thigh, Father Gabriel leads them.

It turns out Gabriel has a good singing voice. Olivia and Eugene, too. And Daryl’s not half bad, himself. In fact, it sounds downright cheery and optimistic until Rick cuts in like a series of cop car sirens, “HU OH TUPE! HU OH LUOU! TUBO OH--”

“Mom,” an upset Sam whines from behind his mother’s skirts. He smacks his hands over his ears. “Make it _stop_.”

“Ron,” Jessie hisses in horror and grabs her son, pulling him back into the house as fast as she can. “It’s nice, honey. _Say it’s nice! Tell the octopus it’s nice!_ ”

“I do believe that your son was making more of an objective statement than a subjective reasoning,” Eugene informs her, “given the pitch and frequency of said singing.”

There’s a general intake of breath and then a moment of silence as Rick just stares daggers at Eugene to his left. With a firm and clear voice, Rick said, “Hut hubule plo” and then starts spinning. Daryl cringes and holds still as the octopus throws himself into the motion like a top and the only one of the whole entire gang that manages to react fast enough is Father Gabriel, hitting the floor like it’s a bomb drill.

Rick mows them down. Every last one of them, until there are only groaning and sore limbs spread across the floor. And then, with a clearing of his octopus throat, he picks up where he left off, at the _Virgin Mother_ part. “TUBO OH ULIGU NUPLETU O MOOO--”

***

Daryl decides outside activities are way too much and so instead, he takes Rick back home. But not to the living room, because the shiny tinsel still ignites the fire in his soul, evidenced by the straining tentacles trying to rip it apart. So in lieu of the Christmas tree, Daryl brings him into the kitchen. He fills the sink with warm water and plobs Rick down into it to soak while he goes about the kitchen, gathering dishes and ingredients for gingerbread cookies.

Rick sinks himself into the water until only his eyes are above it and makes little bubbles around himself as he goes, his tentacles splayed into the other side of the sink and onto the counter on his far side. Daryl grabs a measuring cup and attempts to fill it with half a cup of water. Just as he’s got the cup under the faucet, Rick smacks the bottom of it upward, splashing it all over Daryl’s front and face. Daryl sputters and frowns hard. “RICK!” he grumbles and stares at the octopus until Rick looks away, into the other side of the kitchen. “Are you done?” Daryl asks. Rick makes a water bubble that Daryl will take for “ub.”

He nods to himself and turns the sink back on again, goes for the water a second time and _FLIP!_ Straight into his face _again_. “DAMMIT!” Daryl grouses and Rick plubs, settling down and then Daryl tries a third time, a fourth, a fifth--“That is _it_ ,” Daryl snaps when there’s more water in his hair than on Rick’s tentacles. He grumbles as he walks over to the cabinet and pops a can of sardines. Rick squeaks in excitement and leans up on his tentacles so that he can watch what Daryl is doing. Daryl frowns and takes the tin, dumps some ginger into it and mixes it up. “Here, you little sack of frustration.” He slams the tin down on the counter next to the cephalopod. “Have some fishy Christmas cheer.”

Rick stares at the fish and then slowly drags one up to look at it, turning it this way and that while he examines it (which gives Daryl the perfect amount of time to get half a cup of water). Eventually, he pulls it under himself and sticks it in his beak and after only a little bit of octopus eye-frowning, decides it must be worth his time as he goes to eat the rest.

Daryl sighs and goes back to his mixing bowl. Flour...sugar...eggs...baking powder...there. All the ingredients in. Except...damn. He forgot the ginger. He turns to grab it from where he left it on the counter behind him and as his eyes leave the bowl, Rick launches. He flies full scale across the kitchen, aiming perfectly to land right inside the bowl and send it skidding off the counter to crash in a mess of worthless ingredients on the floor. Once the bowl is down and dead, Rick stands up from his carnage and honks his glee at it, but the happiness is short lived when Daryl grabs his head and yanks him up, fingers making indents into the octopus skin. “That,” Daryl says, “is,” he glowers, “it, _RICHARD_. You and I are going to have a _talk_.”

The octopus wiggles and squeaks and plubs and grumbles, but that doesn’t stop the tight hold Daryl has on him, nor the fact that Daryl is storming through the house to their bedroom, tossing Rick on their bed once he’s inside and locking the door. Rick stares up at him with big, huge, black eyes and starts to play with the corner of the bedding. Daryl, for his part, stands at the door with his arms crossed and waits him out.

Rick slaps weakly at the bed and then lifts his eyes up slowly to Daryl before darting them back down rapidly when he sees Daryl is still staring at him. He flips the corner of the covers with the tips of his tentacles and then does it again--eyes slowly up, fast back down. Daryl waits.

Eventually, Rick huffs a huge sigh, his body expanding in a puff of a balloon before deflating to skinny again. “Obau,” he says very, very softly.

“You bet your ass you’re sorry,” Daryl tells him and finally walks from the door and sits down next to Rick. “You nearly ruined the Christmas tree, you gave Aaron a fright, you had a meltdown over a snow angel, you gave half of Alexandria a concussion, _and_ you ruined my cookies. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Rick looks over at Daryl with those big eyes again and then gives a quick octopus shrug. “Nu pou wubasi.”

Daryl rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I know you don’t like Christmas. _Why_?”

Rick stares down at the comforter before him and then wads it up in his tentacles so he can start smacking at it. “Nu pou.”

“There’s got to be a reason,” Daryl coaxes and Rick shrugs again before kicking the covers away angrily.

“Nu…” Rick starts and then looks up at Daryl. He puts his two tentacles in front of his face and wrings them. “Nu...pou yub plo huun.”

“You don’t want to...let me down?”

“Pou,” Rick says in a tiny little voice. “O...nu he.”

“And...you do.”

“Ub.”

Daryl sighs and lets the tension in his own shoulders release. He holds out his hands in front of him, palms up, and Rick slowly crawls inside. Daryl lifts Rick up to eye level and smiles softly. “Rick...you don’t let me down.”

“Nu ‘gubilu wubasi beet o nu gubilu coohie o nu--’”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Daryl cuts in. “I get it. You don’t have to quote me back. I did say you ruined stuff, but...well, but you were being kind of an ass. But that doesn’t _disappoint_ me. You don’t disappoint me.”

“Wubasi ub owi huo?”

“ _What_?” Daryl huffs in surprise. “No! Christmas would _not_ be better without you!”

Rick slaps weakly at Daryl’s wrist. “...ub?”

“Ub. Definitely. So...is that all you were worried about? That I would be mad at you about Christmas?”

Rick nods his squishy head and Daryl smiles at him. “Then there is absolutely nothing to worry about.” Daryl leans forward and places a kiss right above Rick’s eyes. “So why don’t you poof back, okay? And then we can _really_ kiss and lay in bed together for the rest of the day and I promise you I won’t make you do _anything_ festive. Okay?”

Rick stares at him, his beady eyes going and then he slides his tentacles up Daryl’s arm. “Plo ulwo huo?” Rick asks.

And Daryl smiles. “Yes, Rick,” he says. “Yes, I love you.”

***

An hour later, they’re in bed together, naked human skin on naked human skin, and Rick is snuggled into Daryl’s side, drawing patterns on his chest with the tips of his fingers. Daryl lazily leans down and starts to kiss Rick, letting himself take time to explore the treasure that is Rick’s mouth. Rick sighs and melts down right there before him, more boneless than anything he’s ever done as an octopus. It’s perfect and it’s magical and it’s them and Daryl wouldn’t have it any other way.

Once he pulls up for air, he smiles and is rewarded with Rick’s own grin, wide and clear and as bright as any Christmas day.

“Think you can stand to look at the tree if we get up?” Daryl asks quietly. “I have cookies to make.”

Rick rolls his eyes, but he chuckles, and smacks at Daryl lovingly. “ _Ub_ ,” he says right before they fall back to kissing.

 


End file.
